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Sunday, July 24, 2011

Hirsch Selection Small Batch Reserve

I'm absolutely silly when it comes to bourbon, especially bourbon that I love. I have 2 bottles that have been sitting on my counter for months, touched for a sip here and there or in the case of my Corner Creek to splash a little into some recipe. But in the making of drunken cherries, was I about to use those bottles? Absolutely not! Does this make me a bourbon hoarder? And if so, is that necessarily a bad thing?

So I went out into the heat with my sister to pick out a new bottle. I was tempted to get another Corner Creek, for the price it really can't be beat, but I wanted to branch out a little, try something new. And as I was going to use this basically for preserving cherries and not intended to be consumed as a beverage, I didn't want to be too picky. So without too much thought I grabbed this bottle, Hirsch Selection Small Batch Reserve for no reason other than being right next to the Corner Creek and in the same price range ($30).

"Very clean on the nose. There’s something bitter lingering there…tar?…algae? Not entirely pleasant, but very muted as to be almost unoticable.

On the palate there’s a good bit of burned sugar, dark raspberry, over all pretty bright and with something salty in there. Medium finish, but quite warm."

After drunken cherry making there wasn't much left, as you can see, but just enough for us to taste. We tasted with both a splash of water and without and agreed there was a good complexity, but it was a tad harsh and lingering, which not necessarily bad. The splash of water muted this though. On the nose most prominently was brown sugar, followed closely by vanilla, but it didn't have the same rich, smokey full mouth feel that Old Pogue has. But it's also not in the same price range. Not bad, for the price and for the complexity I'm glad I used this for the cherries.